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"“They are known to be less predictable, definitely more temperamental than domestic cats. There’s no curling up with a book with them.”"

Gabriela Mastromonaco

curator of reproduction programs and research at the Toronto Zoo

They say a leopard can’t change its spots.

But through careful, painstaking breeding, humans can soften them a bit.

They can contour and calm and gentle the creatures into something you might even allow into your living room.

Something like this spotted young male that is peering down from the fluorescent light fixture, more than two metres up from the floor in Heather Hill’s crazy house of a cattery near Uxbridge — a perch he gained in one, effortless leap.

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He’s called a Bengal cat.

And he, along with the four other juveniles leaping and yowling in the big room at Hill’s Canicspots breeding operation, is a genetic mixture of the domestic feline and the Asian leopard — a small but ferocious beast found in a variety of sizes and habitats from the Philippines to Afghanistan.

“If people want a couch potato . . . this is not the breed for them,” Hill says.

“They should expect a lot of excitement pretty much for the lifetime that cat is with you. They’re pretty busy little clowns.”

They are also catching the eye of more and more cat lovers.

Along with Savannah cats — a mix between domestic felines and African Servals — the Bengals are bringing a jolt of the jungle into tens of thousands of North American homes.

Indeed, the Bengals have been the most registered breed of cat in the world for eight years running, says Leslie Bowers, business manager of The International Cat Association, or TICA.

The cats, which have been bred since the early 1980s, now number more than 98,000 registrations with TICA — by far the most out of the 56 breeds the group recognizes.

The Savannah, a much newer breed, has some 1,700 cats registered with the association, the cat equivalent of the American Kennel Club.

“They’re beautiful cats, if you’ve seen them, you’ll know why their (popularity) is growing,” she says.

While the cats can boast an undoubted beauty — and high fun quotients — they have also raised concerns with some experts who fear for the lives of the breeding stock animals and the safety of the hybrids’ owners.

But at first glance — and glances are all you get as they dart and dive from view — what’s not to love?

“They’re little monkeys. I’ll be mopping the floor and I’ll have a 10-week-old kitten straddling (the mop) and riding it. And you do an awful lot of mopping,” Hill says.

Mopping in a Bengal cattery is a grinding chore — so much so that it helps force many breeders out of the business after two or three years, says Hill, who has been at for most of two decades.

Not only do the male cats insist on marking the premises with nose-searing urine spray, but many Bengals will use their litter, or anything else at their disposal, as projectiles, she says.

“They’ll throw their litter all over the floor and their food all over the floor. They like to play with everything that’s there to play with.”

This playfulness, however, is not bred of a muted ferocity handed down from their wild forebears, Hill says.

“I would say it’s exactly the opposite because the Asian leopard cat is a timid little thing (when people are around),” she says.

“So what we needed to do was actually breed the playfulness in. The Asian leopard would just like to hide and be invisible and what we have is this silly, silly little kitty.”

Like their jungle progenitors, however, Bengals do love to swim and will splash in any water available to them.

But in their affection for humans, Hill says, and in their ability to be trained, the Bengal resembles a dog more than a typical domestic cat — if you had a beagle that could jump three metres into the air.

One of many things they do retain from their leopard heritage, however, is an instinctive yearning for the hunt.

Hill’s cattery is behind the family’s home in a lush, wooded lot just coming into leaf during a recent visit.

And the cats spend much of their time crawling — right-side up or otherwise — around the windows looking out on the forest.

But that’s the closest they’ll likely ever get to nature.

“Once it’s introduced to the outdoors, whether it’s on a lead or not, it’s now stalking your door, waiting for you to come in with groceries, waiting for the children to run out and play,” Hill says.

“Next thing you know, your kitty is gone.”

Their typical shut-in status is likely a reason that many in North America have rarely sighted the creatures, despite their growing popularity.

And one look will tell you why that demand is rising.

Bengals retain the appearance of their wild ancestors, with the bushy tail, sleek, elongated bodies, set-back ears and the signature rosette spots.

That appearance is what first drew Hill to the animals some 18 years ago, when she saw a photograph of a Bengal in a cat magazine.

And it’s the reason — coupled with an allergy-free pelt — most buyers are drawn to the breed, she says.

The Bengals are about the size of that large tomcat that sits on your backyard fence, only longer and sleeker. Many actually have one more vertebra than domestics.

Their wild ancestors typically weigh in at about two to seven kilograms — a good domestic cat range.

The long-eared spotted Savannahs are often much larger, with their Serval forebears tipping the scales at up to 18 kilograms.

But some of Hill’s cats are 10 to 14 generations removed from their wild roots. She, like the majority of Bengal breeders, relies on the careful mating of well-coloured and proportioned animals to maintain the leopard look.

Those initial wild-domestic matings, however, could be fraught and problematic.

First off, says Gabriela Mastromonaco, curator of reproduction programs and research at the Toronto Zoo — which displays Servals but not Asian leopards — the wild cats might well have seen a meal, more than a mate, in their proffered partners.

“If you’re not careful, they’ll kill each other. This is not a good thing,” Mastromonaco says.

The second problem with the wild-domestic mixing is the crossover genetics.

Fortuitously for those early Bengal breeders, they chose cats with the same number of chromosomes — the basic DNA units that contain the genetic blueprints for a species.

Domestic cats and all European, Asian and African wild cats sport 38 chromosomes. Their wild, New World cousins feature 36.

“That’s your biggest battle, (because) you’re more likely to create a living offspring if you have the same chromosome number,” Mastromonaco says.

While identical in number, however, those domestic and wild chromosomes have existed and replicated in separate pools for centuries.

And during that time, their genetic contents and configurations have been altered, Mastromonaco says.

“There are little bits (of the chromosomes) that have been deleted and added on because of evolution that can still cause problems with the offspring.”

Number one among them is fertility.

Simply put, the vast majority of the males and many of the female kittens from the interbreed couplings will be sterile.

To a restore a breeding ability, Mastromonaco says, the females possessing some fertility must be backcrossed with a male domestic cat.

The hybrid offspring from these matings are again bred with domestic cats, bringing the wild genetic content of the Bengals down below 15 per cent by the fourth generation, she says.

“We’re talking about hybrids that are only alive because of human intervention,” Mastromonaco says.

“There are actually quite a lot of barriers to overcome.”

While the minimal amount of wild cat genes in the Bengals are enough to carry on the spotted pelt, body shape — and the jaw-dropping leaps — the majority domestic DNA bequeaths a relative tameness, Mastromonaco says.

“They’ve been lucky enough that they got an animal that still has the coat . . . but has more fertility and has more of the domestic temperament,” she says.

Still, domestication levels would vary between each Bengal or Savannah, and some can be downright flighty, Mastromonaco says.

“They are known to be less predictable, definitely more temperamental than domestic cats. There’s no curling up with a book with them.”

And given the chance, she says, they’d hunt pretty much anything with fur or feathers.

Humans have been living with wild cats as pets since civilization’s dawn, says Dr. Cathy Gartley, a reproductive specialist with the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph.

But that doesn’t always make it a good idea, she says.

Mastromonaco agrees, saying the mixed breeds can do some stinging damage to unwary guests or owners.

However, there have been no reports of serious injuries from either Savannahs or Bengals, says Gartley, who has preformed fertility examinations on many males from both breeds.

“The last Savannah cat I saw . . . came in on a halter and walked just like a dog in here,” she laughs.

“It was a beautiful cat and no more scary than any domestic cat to work on. But boy, if they decided to take a round out of you, they’re just bigger.”

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